By the Ols family I mean John and Charlotte Ols and their descendants. We have already met two of their sons: Christ (and I shall have an update on that story), and Charles. It is their eldest son, Henry, we are to deal with now.
Henry was born around 1860, when the family was still in Germany (Prussia). They arrived in this country in the early to mid-1870s,* and by 1880 were farming in Hobart Township. In 1884 Henry married Bertha Wischman of Hobart. They had five children, three of whom survived infancy: Herman (born 1887), Elizabeth (1889) and Martin (1894).
Let's start with this photo that has come down to us from Henry:
(Click on image to enlarge)
Image courtesy of the Hobart Historical Society and Fred Ols.
Handwritten notes on the back: "Henry buddies from brickyard (probably Natco)." We don't have a date for this photo. It is printed on postcard with a divided back, but no printer's name or other helpful information.
I am not sure whether Henry is in the photo at all. I don't recognize him, but then again the faces of a few of these men are so blurred their own mothers wouldn't recognize them. Nor do I know whether Henry ever worked in any brickyard. To the census-takers, he gave different occupations: farm laborer (1880), day laborer (1900), carpenter (1910 through 1930).**
So we don't know who these brickies are, but it's a nice brickyard picture.
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*Henry gave different dates to different census-takers.
**The 1920 census is illegible on that point, but it looks as if it might possibly have "carpenter" as his occupation.
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